Cheats and advantage players have been around as long as gambling. With the advancement of technology, come new methods for cheats and advantage players to work against casinos. One such method involves marking playing cards such that cheats may discern a card's identity (i.e., value and suit) from the card back. Knowing the value and suit provides the cheat with a tremendous advantage over the casino (e.g., blackjack) or competing players (e.g., poker). Intentionally marking playing cards can take many forms including, but not limited to, the use of invisible chemicals viewable through special lenses, the use of chemicals only viewable via electronic means and physical demarcations. Unintentional card markings include, but are not limited to, anomalies, smudges, manufacturing defects, etc. As suggested, advantage players take advantage of available information rather than intentionally marking cards. For example, advantage players may use manufacturing defects with the playing cards to create an advantage (e.g., edge sorting).
It would be useful and advantageous to develop an automatic playing card shuffler and other card-handling devices incorporating one or more cameras, micro-vision systems, embedded systems, and non-imaging sensors to build a complete detection system to detect anomalies and undesirable markings on playing cards to limit or prevent cheats and advantage players from gaining an edge against casinos.